John 6:67 - Exposition

Jesus therefore said unto the twelve . He spake to them because of the wide defection from his ranks. "The twelve" have never been mentioned before in the Gospel, but this passing reference reveals acquaintance with the fact on the part of the evangelist. He assumes the historic number as perfectly explicable to his readers. The reference to the twelve baskets in John 6:13 almost presupposes that there were the same number of disciples, and this pathetic appeal is in harmony with the synoptic account of their "call." Would ye also go away? ΄ὴ θέκλετε suggests a negative answer, "Ye cannot wish, can you?" (Meyer). Godet says, on the contrary, "If you wish, you can!" Westcott, "The form of the question implies that such desertion is incredible, and yet to be feared" (cf. John 7:47 , John 7:52 ; John 18:17 , John 18:25 ). The question is far from identical with that query which once more the Lord put to the twelve, after many subsequent months of varied activity and critical discourse, which showed how Jesus had at length broken with the narrow literalism of Judaic privilege, On that occasion he was summing up the varied convictions produced upon the Galilaean multitudes, and he asked, "But whom say ye that I am?" Here he is simply suggesting the possibility, but yet the incredibility, of his desertion by the twelve apostles, merely because he had affirmed the spiritual aims of his entire mission, and had made an unreserved offer of his Divine humanity to their need. The pathos of this inquiry shows how serious a crisis was being enacted. It has reference in its issues rather to himself than to the twelve. The critical school see in this verse the Johannine treatment of the great apostolic confession, and Weiss here agrees with it. Even Godet thinks that two such questions with their answers, under comparatively similar conditions, are improbable. He suggests that the ἐκ τούτου ( John 6:66 ) points to a great scattering, and that months may have elapsed before the scene which John here condenses. It is more likely that John omits the later scene, and prefers to give this, which stands closely related with the immediate circumstances (cf. also Luke 9:1-62 .). The context and surrounding of the scene in Matthew 16:13-17 and Mark 8:27-29 appear to differ in place, occasion, query, and answer, and in the corresponding teaching that followed. The question was "the anticipation of Gethsemane" (Edersheim).